Latency of instrumental responses as a function of compatibility with the meaning of eliciting verbal signs.

Does the ease of association of an instrumental movement with a verbal stimulus depend upon the compatibility of the movement with the meaning of that verbal stimulus? Such a relation would appear to follow from the two-stage mediational model described by Osgood (1953). He assumes that in the development of meanings of signs, either perceptual or verbal, the sign-stimuli become associated with distinctive portions of the total behavior elicited by significate-stimuli. This portion of the total behavior to things signified is called a representational mediation process. It is representational because it is part of the same behavior made to the significate; it is mediational because, through its self-stimulational properties, it can become associated with overt instrumental movements. Among the classes of responses elicited by both signs and significates are evaluative reactions—approaching, avoiding, reaching for, pushing away, and so forth. If the total behavior elicited by a positive or negative significate includes such approach or avoidance movements, then the theory requires that tendencies or dispositions toward such movements